This story is part of our end-of-year series This Year in Gear rounding up the most notable releases of 2020. For more stories like this, click here.
No one knew how long we’d be working from home because of the pandemic. A week? Two weeks? A month? For most people, it’s been about nine months of waking up and rolling into your makeshift home office. A number of brands have risen to the occasion to make gear that meant you didn’t have to work on top of a stack of books anymore. So whether you were a WFH veteran or you were thrust into the struggle, at least these products from this year made things just a little better.
Floyd x Fully Standing Desk
Two of our favorite direct-to-consumer brands — Floyd with its furniture and Fully with its home office gear — teamed up to make a standing desk that pulls from both of their strengths. It features Fully’s Jarvis standing desk frame, which runs smooth, and is topped with Floyd’s signature birch plywood tabletop, available in three finishes.
Price: $865
Grovemade Laptop Riser
You’re probably straining your next reading this. Ideally, the top of your laptop screen should be at your eye level. If not, you’re really screwing with your body. Grovemade’s laptop riser makes it so your laptop screen is at the right height, and like the rest of the brand’s impeccably designed goods, adds some much-needed style to a drab workspace.
Price: $140
Gantri x Ammunition
Gantri hit the jackpot when it teamed up with design firm Ammunition. Or maybe it’s the other way around, as Gantri is hands down the coolest brand making lamps right now — they’re 3D-printed using plant polymers so they’re as environmentally friendly as they are beautiful. The trio of designs — Gio, Signal and Carve — span across table lamps, wall lamps and floor lamps, the latter two a new product category for Gantri, and they really nailed it with the collection.
Price: $148+
Gantri Palm Collection
All lamps are work lamps. Gantri’s Palm collection, however, is designed specially for getting things done. Its in-house designers created Palm with a space-saving design, clean, smooth edges and a silhouette that better diffuses light across your work surface to reduce eye strain.
Price: $98+
Coway Airmega 150
Coway, one of the leading brands for air purifiers, released its nicest — and smallest — models to date. The Airmega 150 effectively covers rooms up to 214 square feet, with CADR ratings of 138 for smoke, 161 dust, 219 pollen. In other words, it looks great and works just as well. While air purifiers weren’t so prevalent in home offices in 2019, they sure are this year and likely for a while.
Price: $150
Humanscale x Razer Pro Click
The ergonomic specialists at Humanscale worked with gaming company Razer on a wireless mouse designed to make you more productive. The shape of the mouse helps to alleviate wrist strain, and a sensitive sensor can track your tiniest movements for optimal precision. Eight programmable buttons allows users to assign specific functions to remain as productive as they can as they work from home.
Price: $100
Grovemade Leather Notebook
Leather makes everything better, even notebooks. Grovemade’s leather-bound books are designed to last. The material will patina with time, and because the pages are refillable, you’ll own this notebook for a lifetime.
Price: $60+
Orbitkey Desk Mat
Cluttered desks result in unproductive work. The Orbitkey desk mat has a couple standout features that do make desk organization something to get excited about. The top layer hides a document slip, and sliding magnetic cable holder keeps your pesky charging cables and random wires in check.
Price: $65
Craighill Eyewear Stand
Reading glasses users now have somewhere nice to put their frames instead of having them strewn across the desk. Craighill’s brass eyewear stand holds up your specs like a piece of art. Plus, the Harpo Marx resemblance is a funny little Easter egg for those in the know.
Price: $48
Made by Choice Fem Work Desk
This no-assembly desk is made for those who don’t expect to work from home forever. Opt to use the back panel as it is for a simple-looking desk, or convert the back panel into a top shelf when you don’t want a home office anymore.
Windmill
Air conditioners are ugly, but Windmill didn’t get the memo. Its AC unit features an 8,500 BTU engine with a dual-air filter, and it uses a new refrigerant called R32, which has lower global-warming potential than the type used in those dinosaur units. And for good measure, it’s WiFi- and voice-enabled.
Price: $395
Dyson Lightcycle Morph
Dyson’s Lightcycle Morph is more than a lamp — it’s supposed to help you wake up, stay productive and go to sleep. As we said in our review of it, “it’s effectively your mom.” The Lightcycle Morph is truly a do-it-all lamp. Adjust the color temperature and lumen intensity to your choosing whether you want to use it as a desk lamp, accent lamp or floor lamp.
Price: $650
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